Document: Taxi drivers do not accept blind dogs with guide dogs

Odyssey Finding a taxi is for the visually impaired.

There are many complaints about drivers who refuse to board them because they are accompanied by a guide dog, and the press has found out the truth. SKAI research.

11 o’clock in the morning, on Pentelis Avenue, in Vrilissia. Emmanuela, who has a total loss of vision, tries to take a taxi – with Dovi – her guide dog.

We count more than 5 free taxis to pass – but none stops – because no driver wants to put in his taxi, the guide dog.

«Especially when it is late at night, the other day I was in Renti, 12para, and I had to go to the subway to get the last subway. For half an hour I was trying to find a taxi, they would come, they would stop as soon as they saw that I had a dog, they would say I would not take it and they would leave.Explains Emmanuela Masourou, a disabled person and a guide dog handler.

Drivers claim – illegally – that the dogs will soil their taxis and that is why they do not allow them to enter.

Others will charge – again illegally, more than the route cost, because they also carried the guide dog.

The same inhuman behavior is shown by taxi drivers, in squares and on electronic platforms, even when called by a radio taxi service.

“Unfortunately, a large percentage, which may reach 90%, react,” says Fotis Lefas, a disabled person and a guide dog handler.

Fotis and Ariel, as well as Emmanuela and Dovi, tried to take a taxi. In the presence of SKAI’s camera, everyone was positive to take them to their destination.

But when the camera was tens of meters away, very few drivers served the blind.

«Most of the time they want to take a taxi, it is the hours when they need it because they have no other means to get around. At that moment they do not know what to do – they are left alone and helplessexplains Giannis Kondarros, Instructor of Mobility and Orientation of Guide Dogs.

The law for guide dogs is clear – and not open to any interpretation.

From 2010, every blind person is entitled to be accompanied by a help dog when moving, everywhere.

From 2014, guide dogs do not even need to board a cage or wear a muzzle, while from 2018, taxi drivers can not refuse to be hired blind with a guide dog.

Many taxi drivers say they are allergic to dogs and therefore do not allow driver dogs to enter their vehicles.

A new legal provision, however, obliges taxi drivers who will refer to such a thing, to show a relevant certificate, from a public doctor.

Lawyers dealing with such cases reveal to SKAI how taxi drivers – prosecuted ex officio by anti-racism law.

«Any professional who refuses to provide information or products to a disabled person can be fined between 1,000 and 5,000 euros, and combined with imprisonment from 6 months to 3 years.Says Vangelis Avgoulas, Lawyer and Member of the Board of the Athens Bar Association.

In fact, these days, the case of a taxi driver who threw a blind woman out of his vehicle with a driver dog is being heard.

As Juliana Boussi, a disabled person and a guide dog operator, explains, the taxi driver had thrown her dog out of the taxi when she got in, because she did not want to respect the law and understand it.

«It has happened other times that I have a problem“, He describes.

What many taxi drivers do not understand or do not want to understand is that guide dogs, when wearing the work saddle, are not just pets, but the extension of its operator, the eyes of their blind owner.

They will guide them on the road and protect them from obstacles – as if they were watching.

“We give them a valuable good for them, an equal opportunity for their daily living, to move with independence and autonomy and our fellow citizens themselves exclude them,” comments Giannis Kondaros.

In recent weeks, in fact, organizations of the blind have received many complaints from tourists with stray dogs, which can not be served not only in taxis, but also in other means of public transport such as buses, hotels and even churches, tarnishing the international image of our country.